Читать книгу The False Rider - Макс Брэнд - Страница 4

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They camped together. Duff Gregor never forgot that occasion. He never forgot his bewilderment when, at Silver's chosen point on the runlet of water, the fire was built and a bit of fresh venison was started roasting after it had been cut into convenient chunks and spitted on bits of wood, for then he discovered that Jim Silver traveled through the land with no further provision than a rifle, salt, and matches!

"Why," said Gregor, "a wild goose couldn't fly no lighter than that! How d'you bed yourself down, brother?"

"I have a blanket and a slicker," said Silver.

It was true. One threadbare blanket and a slicker; that was all.

"When I have to move, I generally have to move fast—and sometimes rather far," explained Silver.

That was true, also. A thousand crooks of all sorts and sizes, most of them dangerous, because Silver never bothered with small fry, were constantly on the lookout for opportunities to revenge themselves on this man.

Many a time, according to legend, they had banded together and, in full power, hunted Jim Silver north and south and east and west. Parade was what beat them, and when they scattered, Parade bore his master on the back trail until some two or three of the pursuers had paid for their rashness as much as man can pay. These man hunts had grown unpopular, therefore, among Silver's greatest enemies.

But it was more than the need to escape enemies or the will to hunt them down that made Silver fly light. Men said that he could not find continued happiness in any one spot, as though there were a curse upon him, and he was forced to rove endlessly. Or perhaps he was seeking happiness as other men seek for gold, and never finding more than the brief content that comes from action.

There were other reasons, later on, why Gregor could never forget the evening, or the picture of the calm, quiet face of Jim Silver. He had sense enough not to turn the conversation on the past, or to try to make Silver talk about his exploits. He knew the man's reputation for taciturnity in all that concerned his own feats. But he found that Silver would talk readily enough in a deep, pleasantly flowing voice. What he liked to describe were his journeys through the mountains or across the deserts, and the strange men he had met—old pioneers, squatters, Indians—who partook of the nature of the wilderness and of the frontier life.

Silver went to bed early. He simply took his blanket and slicker and went off, after he had first cut a good soft bed of evergreen boughs and saplings for Gregor.

"I have to keep in the open," said Silver. "People could sneak up on me, if I stayed in cover like this. But out in the open Parade takes care of me. And I've learned to sleep warm enough with one blanket and a slicker—even in the snow."

He went out, in fact, on the bare flat of the valley, and there gaping Gregor saw him lie down, while the great stallion ranged to and fro.

No doubt Parade himself lay down before morning, but the last Gregor saw of the picture Parade was still moving about, now and then nibbling the grass, and again throwing up his head to study the far horizon and all of the unseen dangers of sound and scent that blew to him down the wind.

Well, it would take a clever man to stalk Jim Silver under conditions like these. But not even for the devotion of a matchless horse like that would Duff Gregor have changed conditions with Silver, and not for all the fame that rang in the ears of men. To eat like a wild hawk, and live like a wild hawk—that was not for Gregor!

How could Jim Silver enter a town without being aware, every instant, that danger might leap at him from every doorway, that guns might fire from every window? How could he sit in peace, except with two walls of a room guarding his back? What, in fact, did life mean to such a man, except the arduous pursuit of glory, unendingly?

Gregor had asked during the evening: "D'you like it, Jim? D'you like living this sort of a life—traveling with no coffee, no flour, no bacon, no cooking pans, no nothing?"

And Silver had said: "Well, it makes everything more simple. I used to carry not even salt, but I've added that. I guess I'm getting old and soft. But you can look at it this way, Duff: Wherever you go, no matter on what desert, there's always life of some sort. There aren't very many desert jack rabbits, but there are some. Wherever you go, you'll find game, if you hunt carefully for it. And if you miss food for a couple of days, it makes it taste all the better when you make a kill."

It was a very simple philosophy, but it made the heart of Duff Gregor grow small. For himself, he preferred a little more fat, a little more comfort, a little less glory, if need be. But to think of lying down every night without the certainty that the day would ever dawn again—that the bark of a gun or the cold agony of steel buried in the throat might not be the end of the world!

No wonder that this man had been able to run even the great criminal name of Barry Christian out of the world, and broken him utterly, and his gang, too, so that one heard nothing of Christian in these days.

It might be that Christian was dead. It might be that, a broken man, he was cooking for some obscure cattle ranch. But no wonder that Silver had beaten him, for the man was all edge. He was all cutting edge: he could not fail to win.

When Gregor rose in the morning, the fire had already been rekindled by Silver, and they had for breakfast the same as they had had the night before. At least, Gregor had it.

"Roast meat and cold water," he said. "How d'you stand it? Ain't it monotonous?"

"You see," said Silver, "when I'm on the range, I eat only once a day, and then I'm so hungry that I'm never tired of meat. And I'm so thirsty that water tastes better than wine."

That day he took Gregor across the mountains through the first pass. In the middle of the day he showed him a patch of houses on the other side of a valley.

"That's Allerton," said Silver. "The stage from Crow's Nest runs there. If you want to move on, you can get the stage. Any money?"

There was plenty of money in the pocket of Gregor, but he had no objection to taking more. He said that unluckily he was broke.

Silver took a sheaf of five twenties out of his pocket and handed them over. There was very little left of his roll after he had made this contribution. He was easy. It was no wonder that he could not keep the fortunes which he had made several times, because everyone knew that he could not say "No." He was so easy that it was hard for Gregor to keep from laughing in his face.

There was a good wind blowing up the valley, and Silver had taken off his hat to enjoy the coolness of it, and Gregor saw above the temples the two spots of gray hair like horns beginning to push through the hair. Men said that that was how he had first got his name of "Silver-tip" or "Silver."

They shook hands, and then Gregor marched down the slope and up the other side. Before he had gone far on his way, Silver had disappeared. The great waste of the mountains had received him again. Where would he reappear? Only where the needs of some unlucky man or the outrage committed by some criminal called him out of his quiet seclusion.

Gregor climbed on into Allerton, went into the first saloon, and leaned a heavy elbow on the bar until he had poured three drinks under his belt. After that, he was able to stop thinking.

"To blazes with Jim Silver!" he said under his breath, and went to a restaurant to find food. Finally, when he had well filled himself, the thought of that lonely soul who drifted through mountains hunting for happiness with a deathless and futile hope grew dim in his brain.

He looked over Allerton, decided that it offered few opportunities for a man of his genius, and, therefore, took the two-o'clock stage for Crow's Nest, which was far off in the blue of the next range toward the west. Crow's Nest was a big town, a booming town, men told him. There were mines not far from it. Lumbering went on near by. Moreover, a certain number of tenderfeet were attracted by the mineral waters of a hot spring that bubbled up in the center of the town, and a good many sick people were constantly in Crow's Nest, taking a cure.

It was exactly the sort of a spot that Gregor liked to haunt, for wherever you find invalids, you find reckless spending. No one, he knew, spends so much money having a good time as the man who expects that he may be dead before morning. The death house atmosphere of such a town would be exactly suited to the peculiar talents of Gregor.

So he took the two-o'clock stage and found himself with six other passengers. Every one of them seemed to be a step up from the average population of Allerton. Their baggage looked like "money inside."

When he was sure of this, he felt more at ease than ever. It was a new part of the range, for him. He had never been within five hundred miles of it before he had come to Piute, and Duff Gregor liked new things. He liked new faces, new whisky, new money, and new guns. He liked everything new except new jails.

He felt that this world is a comfortable place. The sun was a shade more brilliant, more warm, more pleasing to the soul, with its golden radiance, than ever before. It shone alike upon the just and the unjust, but he felt that the unjust had just an edge of advantage. How many crooks in this world, for instance, could say that they had twice eaten food cooked by the immortal, man-slaying hands of Jim Silver, lived with him for a day, and parted from him a hundred dollars up?

It was only fifty miles to Crow's Nest. The first part of the journey spun out behind the heels of the galloping horses at the rate of fifteen miles an hour, but the long up-tug toward the town in the next range had to be taken at a walk, and the afternoon had worn away toward sunset, with the sun drifting beside them like fire in the branches of the pine trees, and the sweeter scent and the cooler breath of evening was already coming into the air when, as they turned a corner, a rifle shot clanged like two heavy sledge hammers struck face to face.

The near leader of the team dropped dead. From behind a rock rose the head and shoulders of a masked man who was peering down a very steady rifle.

"Stick 'em up, boys," he said. "Keep 'em right over your heads. Try to touch the sky all the time, and step out on this side, please. Driver, watch yourself, or—"

The rifle spat thin smoke. Its muzzle jerked. The driver cursed and grabbed his right shoulder.

"Sorry," said the highwayman. "You shouldn't have made that move, brother."

There was no mistaking his professional manner. Gregor and all the rest gave up hope of resistance on the spot. Nothing discourages action so much as the sight of blood. Gregor was muttering quietly, "My rotten luck!" as he climbed out to the ground and stood in line with the others.